NASCAR mourns the loss of a true friend in Cooper

Tuesday

Oct 16, 2007 at 1:13 AM

Ben White

The NASCAR community was very recently saddened by the loss of a true friend.Ray Cooper, a manufacturer representative who worked closely with the motorsports media, passed away early Saturday morning after a brief illness. His loss leaves a deep personal void for me as well as countless others within the close-knit NASCAR family.Most race fans did not know of him on a personal level, as his name was not mentioned as widely as those of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart or Kyle Busch. But he certainly worked closely with those drivers and greatly contributed to what race fans read in my columns as well as many newspapers and motorsports publications around the country.Coop, as he was affectionately dubbed, was a longtime reporter who covered NASCAR for the Greensboro News and Record. He also served as a personal mentor of sorts for me when I first began writing for The Dispatch in 1983.Born in Inman, S.C., in 1954, Coop graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1976 and worked 12 years as a sports reporter covering a variety of local high school and college football. He greatly enjoyed auto racing and left the newspaper business to become the first manufacturer media representative for Chevrolet in the early 1990s. In 2001, he joined Dodge Motorsports in the same capacity when the automaker returned to the sport after a 25-year absence.His job was to chase down drivers and get quotes from them just after they stepped from their race cars. Those quotes were transcribed and distributed for use among a large variety of media outlets.Coop was often a blessing for those of us on deadline needing the driver's take on what happened. With ever-present tape or digital recorder rolling, his experience as a motorsports journalist helped him to fish out the best in a driver, either after a great finish or when they were too mad and too frustrated to talk. Coop would tell it just like the drivers said, allowing the emotion of the moment to shine through.Coop completed an amazing 467 consecutive races without missing even one over a 15-year period. Such dedication earned him the prestigious Joe Littlejohn Award and the George Cunningham Award from the National Motorsports Press Association for his excellence in motorsports reporting. He recently was honored with the Pocono Spirit Award by the NMPA.When Coop entered a room, fellow motorsports reporters could always count on his bright smile and easy laugh to make long days and even longer nights at the track much more pleasurable.Coop was also known as quite the poker player. He didn't always have the best hand but somehow, he would emerge victorious, both as the game's winner as well as serving as some of the funniest entertainment of the evening.Soft-spoken and easy-going, his standard "Big Ben" greeting never failed to brighten my day through rain delays, long qualifying sessions and those occasional times when the greatest of driver interviews simply didn't materialize.At Bristol Motor Speedway this past August, he came to the track for a much-anticipated visit. He found a chair in the media center and talked with friends and reminisced about the good ol' days of NASCAR's past. I spent some time with him, as did many reporters, drivers and team owners. It was a memorable visit, one we will all deeply cherish. Coop gave his life to motorsports and will be forever remembered as a genuine racer and friend. His wins and championships were measured not in numbers of trophies won but by the hundreds of friends who truly loved him.That's the way it should be.